Congress is considering legislation requiring corporate shareholder straw votes on CEO pay. Is this good for shareholders? What about society as a whole? Some see such votes as an untoward interference in private business. Shareholders are the ones hurt if…
Category: Other
Both private sector, government “create wealth”
Can governments “create wealth” by using resources to produce goods or services of greater value to society than the resources used? Or does government merely take from some and give to others without any net increase in people’s well-being? That…
The “not so great” often make history
Boris Yeltsin was not a great man. But he did influence history. Two decades ago cracks were beginning to show in the Soviet system. It was not foreordained, however, that it would spin apart at the time and in the…
We can’t ignore taxes…or dirty bathrooms
There is something bad about every tax. The problem, to use a catch phrase among my friends, is that “somebody has to clean the darned bathroom.” (That is an inside joke. Friends once attended college with a gregarious pre-seminary major.…
Easy trade-offs are hard to come by
The central idea of economics is that there is always a catch, a trade-off that must be faced in choosing any alternative. The technical term for this is “opportunity cost.” In the strictly economic sense it describes money trade-offs. If…
Principal-agent problems plague U.S. in Iraq
Gen. David Petraeus’ Ph.D. is in international relations, not economics, but he clearly understands the microeconomic phenomenon known as the “principal-agent problem.” Overcoming it is the key challenge in successful counterinsurgency warfare. It is clear from “Field Manual 3-24 –…
Absolute or relative numbers? It depends
Is an absolute number or a relative one more illuminating? The issue arises as frequently in everyday life as in economics. A short, overweight person drops from 130 to 120 pounds. A tall one goes from 320 to 300. Who…
Tax fairness is in the eye of the beholder
Fairness is a key question in taxation. Nobody likes taxes, but nearly everyone wants some level of government services. Yes, a few Libertarians would leave everything but public safety and national defense to private markets. Most other people, however, also…
Colleges should unplug efforts to limit electricians
Adam Smith, the first great economist, would not have been surprised that the electricians union wants Minnesota’s technical college system to train fewer students for this trade. Smith gave many examples of how different groups feather their nests by restricting…
States can’t alter slowdowns
Do Keynesian or supply-side theories apply at the state level? That’s relevant right now. The national economy is slowing just as state legislatures are setting tax and spending levels. Should legislators consider how such decisions might alter total output, inflation…